When passing through the portal, it disappears and leaves us in what appears to be the top of a valley, beside us a stream runs that descends forming a lake. Over our heads a sky with clouds stretches, the room area seeming limitless.
"What... where are we?" I ask Ragnar, puzzled.
"We are still inside the labyrinth, that sky is just an illusion and the same happens with the limits of the room, if you walk a little in any direction you will see that you reach an invisible wall" says Ragnar while walking towards the lake, and we see a lion drinking from it.
"It seems that the challenge is to beat the lion. You did very well so far, but since it is your first day and you are tired, if you want, I can defeat it and go home quickly" Ragnar says, looking at us questioningly.
I can't decide… on the one hand, I would like to fight the lion, but on the other hand I see in the interface that my health points are at half after receiving so many blows. While I was thinking about this, it seems that Agustín and Sabrina were about to accept the proposal, however, Joseph anticipates them saying "it is better to try now that we are accompanied right? Come on guys!
"ok, fine" Agustín replies, but doesn't seem very convinced. He must be quite beaten, although he doesn't say anything. Since, in the end, he's the one who took care of distracting most of the skeletons of the day. "Same strategy, I distract him, Xelean attacks from the sides and you from behind at a safe distance. Are you ready?"
After hearing our affirmation, Agustín launches himself to attack the lion, while I follow him a little further away to let the lion focus his attention on him. When we are positioned Sabrina and Joseph begin to attack.
But after we have been attacking him for a while, we see that we don't seem to do much harm to the lion. My sword and Joseph's arrows do not cut into his skin and only leave scratches. Only Sabrina with the wind magic bullets that she shoots with her wand and Agustín's mace seem to be effective. However, Agustín is very tired and his attacks are not very frequent, that is why he focuses more than anything on defending himself with his shield of the claws of the lion.
In the end, after a while, we see that the lion gets tired of receiving attacks from his back and runs off in the direction of Sabrina and Joseph, since she is the only one doing significant damage to it. We chase after him trying to catch him up, but only I can keep up as Agustín's heavy armor slows him down. Sabrina panics, seeing the lion running towards her and falls to her knees covering her head with her hands, while Joseph shoots arrow after arrow without accomplishing anything, but with a smile on his face.
I see that we are not going to make it in time to stop it, as I run with all my might, and although I see Ragnar behind them with his hand on the hilt of his sword ready, it bothers me that I was not able to do almost anything to the lion... If only we could get through their skin… with that I get an idea and I yell at Joseph "shoot him in the eyes !!!" without stopping running.
The lion stops short when it receives the arrow in the eye and tries to remove the arrow with his paw. Thanks to that I can reach it, and I see that it is distracted with the arrow in his eye, since it has not noticed my approach. Seeing this, I concentrate on setting my sword on fire and while the blade is covered with flames, I approach the lion and stand in front of him. As I do so, it tries to bite me, but I block him with the guard of my left arm and with all my strength I nail my sword into his other eye, whereupon the lion collapses with a shudder and stops moving after a few moments.
Leaving my sword stuck in the lion's head, I approach Ragnar and the rest. Joseph comes running towards me with a smile, I think maybe he wants to tell me something because of my idea, since thanks to it we defeated the lion, but he ignores me and seems to only have eyes for the lion's body. I see Sabrina crying on the floor and I reach out my hand to help her up "are you okay?"
"y-yes, t-t-thanks" she says, accepting my help and standing up shakily.
"Nice idea!!" says Ragnar patting me on the back "for a moment I thought I would have to intervene"
As we speak I see Agustín arrive out of breath "I am sorry, Sabri, it ran away and... I couldn't... I'm sorry..." he says, wheezing with his hands on his knees.
"It wasn't your fault, you couldn't predict what the lion would do. In any case, I'm the one who has to apologize for falling scared like that, we both knew that these things could happen in the labyrinth when we decided to come, that's why we're accompanying your lunatic cousin" Sabrina says rubbing her eyes to wipe away the tears.
"Well well, you did very well for your first time in a challenge room... Let's see what the lion has dropped and then we can go home" says Ragnar patting Sabrina on the back trying to comfort her.
After all it took us to defeat him, the lion only left several fangs for Joseph and his skin for me. Seeing this "disappointing loot..." I mutter aloud without realizing it.
"Actually, it is quite the opposite, the lion skin is a rare loot, since, as you could see, it is not easy to cut. The royal family buys it at a very good price for that and for other reasons, after all the name of the kingdom isn't Liones for nothing, you'll see when we get back "Ragnar replies.
We exit the labyrinth in the same way we enter, by just thinking on it, and Ragnar leads us to one of the counters. While some of the counters have long waiting lines, the one Ragnar chose has no one waiting. I look at the people waiting, wondering why they don't come to this counter.
"The guild receptionists serve the adventurers according to their rank. There are three adventurer ranks: novice, veteran and vanguard. The guild judges the rank of the adventurers depending on the level and contributions they have made" says Ragnar when he sees the direction of my gaze.
"And… Aren't we newbies too?" I ask, confused.
"You are, but I am a vanguard rank and today you come with me. Normally people could not sneak in like that, but since I am a guild worker and you are newbies learning, it is something that is done to speed up the end of the first raids." he says as he greets the receptionist and starts talking to her "we came to sell the loot from the first exploration of these guys, also, we have to register this one in the guild" he says pointing at me.
While we took turns handing over the loot, the receptionist prepared the money for each of us. The bone dust doesn't seem to be worth much, since we obtained just a few copper coins for it, but I sold the lion skin for 9 gold coins and Sabrina sold the sword for 1 gold coin. Joseph decided to keep the fangs without looking at their value, so we didn't know how much they might be worth.
"Good! Now there is only the registration left, give me a moment please" says the receptionist and leans under the counter, putting away the materials and taking out a smooth stone circle the size of the lid of a garbage can "put your hand palm up on the stone, dear. Do not be afraid, it will only be a moment ". I see that the receptionist has a knife in her hand as she talks to me, so I look at Ragnar doubtfully, but he nods, so I obey. The woman cuts my palm and leaves a stone plate on it that begins to glow when it comes into contact with my blood. When it stops shining, she takes the plate and gives me a bottle with a red liquid "take it all, it will heal the cut and bruises from the labyrinth," she says with a smile.
I see her writing something down on a piece of paper, while looking at the plate and muttering "Xelean, 14 years old, 130 health and mana, affinity with spirit magic and minor affinity with fire magic, novice adventurer... Good! I think that would be it "and she offers me the badge" this will be your guild token. It has information that may be useful to both you and the guild, so keep it in a safe place. It is surprising that you have these abilities at your age, but don't let them numb your judgment, okay?" she says, winking at me.
"Thank you" I say looking at it, I see that the plate has the information that the receptionist mentioned, and I put it in the bag. It isn't very useful to me since I have the interface to see my information, but I suppose that I will need it every time I want to sell the loot in the guild.
We say goodbye to the receptionist and walk away from the counter towards the exit of the guild.
"Wow Xelean, you don't look much older than me, but you have almost as many mana points as Sabrina and more health points than Agustin! And you have two magical affinities!! Sabrina only has one and the two of us have none. Are you some kind of monster or something?" asks Joseph laughing.
"I don't know what to tell you, I don't know why I have those numbers on the plate and about magic... I discovered a year ago that I can use it, but I never experimented much because Ragnar warned me not to do it..." I say uncomfortable, because of the weird question without knowing how to answer. I don't want them to see me as some kind of phenomenon, but I don't want to tell them anything about the interface either.
"Well, it was a good first day, guys" Ragnar interrupts, to help me get out of this strange situation "see you in... Two days, I think a day off may be necessary..." he says looking at Sabrina.
"Thank you very much for joining us, see you in two days then. Let's go home guys" says Agustín and starts to move away with Joseph, but Sabrina seems to want to tell us something else because she stays in the place and with her face increasingly red she says "hmm... Xelean... Would you accompany me to a place tomorrow?" Agustín looks at her with his mouth wide open and Joseph covers his mouth with his hands looking at with amusement.
"Yes, I suppose... but I don't know much about the capital, I live in Ragnar's house. Do you want us to meet here, or do you prefer to come to his house to pick me up?" I answer without knowing what this is about, but I suppose I can take the opportunity to ask about my affinity with spirit magic during our walk.
"I... I'll pick you up… I'll pick you up after noon." she replies with a tomato red face, and after asking Ragnar the address, she runs off, taking Agustín and Joseph by the hand.
As the sun is hiding, we get back home.
Being at home and in my room, after having eaten, I finally had some time to look at the interface to assign the skill points that I have acquired and see the description of my new class, which say [Slightly improves the user's vitality and the mana regeneration, as well as statistics related to the use of magic and related to close-range combat. (labyrinth exclusive class)].
While we were in the labyrinth, despite seeing the level-up notifications, I didn't have time to look at them, as I thought it would be very strange for my companions if I stared blankly into space. The warrior and sorcerer classes gained 3 levels reaching level 6 and the adventurer class rose to level 4, so I have 10 status points to assign. After thinking about it a bit, I decide to assign 5 points to "will" and 5 to "Constitution" since they are the statistics that increase health and mana, as well as their regeneration, while increasing physical and magic resistance. The "intellect" only says that it increases magic damage and since I don't use much magic, I don't see it very useful. The "agility" on the other hand increases my reflexes and mobility speed, but for the moment I prefer to increase my resistance and health, since it is what I will use the most in the labyrinth.
In all these years I have never seen what happens if my health reaches 0, but I do not want to try it, and, today in just one day, I lost a half of the maximum. If I want to routinely go to the labyrinth, I need to either increase my health limit or increase my defenses, and luckily it seems I can do both at the same time. Once the skill points have been assigned, I go to sleep while thinking about what Sabrina will want from me tomorrow….